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This study investigated whether teaching motivations and their outcomes in Hong Kong with a teacher surplus are similar to countries with teacher shortage. Results from 132 pre-service teachers showed altruistic and intrinsic motivations were the most important teaching motivations and they correlated positively with planned teaching engagement. Unlike other studies, two types of fallback career motivation were identified, but only one correlated negatively with planned engagement. Analysis of interview data revealed that the maladaptive effects of fallback career motivation could be reduced by altruistic and intrinsic subject matter motivations. The heuristic value to examine the complete motivation profile was discussed.

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This annual review of the research and practice literature related to career counseling and development during 2007 is presented in 9 areas: professional issues, career assessment, career development, career theory and concepts, career interventions, advances in technology, personnel selection and job placement, international perspectives, and book reviews. Professional issues of a multicultural, multiethnic, and diversified workforce have become among the most frequently enumerated themes of the 2007 career development literature. The author summarizes and discusses the implications of the findings in this literature for the practice of career counseling.

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Most principal–agent literature of nonprofit organizations has focused on the relationship between board members and managers. However, in addition to the role as an agent of the board, the manager also performs a role as principal with respect to the nonprofit employees. By using a discrete choice experiment, we identify the objectives of managers and employees in nonprofit organizations and assess the presence of agency problems in this relationship. Our sample consists of 76 headmasters, 161 teachers, and 39 administrative employees in 74 secondary nonprofit schools in Belgium. We find that the six objectives set out in the experiment play an important role for both headmasters and subordinate staff. However, the results also indicate that some of these objectives are significantly more important for the headmasters. In sum, our results suggest that agency theory and stewardship theory are not necessarily in conflict with each other but can be combined into a more general governance framework for nonprofit organizations. Consequently, we argue that incentive structures that incorporate different types of objectives can facilitate the recruitment and retention of employees in nonprofit organizations.

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Studium abgeschlossen hatten, kann die Schlussfolgerung gezogen werden, dassLehrer sich vor allem an intrinsischen, altruistischen und interpersonellenMotivatoren orientieren. Weiterhin bevorzugen Lehrer auch altruistische undinterpersonelle Werthaltungen, wa ¨hrend sich Nicht-Lehrer sta ¨rker angesprochenfu ¨hlen von individualistischen Werthaltungen wie Aufstiegsmo ¨glichkeiten undDurchsetzungsmacht/Einfluss.Resumen. Motivacio ´n del profesorado recie ´n titulado para elegir un empleo eneducacio ´n.En este artı ´culo se hace una comparacio ´n entre profesores que tienenun empleo relacionado con la educacio ´n y los que no. Explora la motivacio ´n paraelegir un trabajo en la ensen ˜anza en funcio ´n de motivos laborales y del puesto detrabajo en sı ´. De 241 profesores encuestados recie ´n titulados se puede concluir queel profesorado considera los aspectos intrı ´nsecos, altruistas e interpersonales comomotivos importantes especı ´ficos relacionados con el trabajo. Adema ´s, los profesoresprefieren los valores laborales altruistas e interpersonales, mientras que los que noejercen como profesores se sienten ma ´s atraı ´dos por valores individualistas como lasoportunidades de promocio ´n en su carrera y por cargos de poder.KeywordsTeachers ? Job motives ? Work valuesIn many Western countries, the shortage of teachers is currently being debated. Theaverage teacher is ageing at a time when new graduates who could enter or areactually entering the teaching profession do not necessarily view teaching as acareer priority; this results in more individuals leaving the profession each year thanthere are individuals being recruited (Bastick, 2000; De Grip, 2004). The shortageof well-educated and motivated teachers, will probably worsen unless teaching canbe made more attractive to graduates (Serow & Forrest, 1994). Therefore, the issueof how to replace the teachers of the baby boom generation (individuals bornbetween 1943 and 1960) has become a major concern. Within this context, a fairamount of research has focused on pre-service teachers and their motivation forentering the profession.Work motivation is one of the oldest and most frequently discussed topics inpsychology (Rousseau, 1997). Trying to answer the question of why people aredoing things and, if they do something, why they are doing that and not somethingelse, is the main focus. Within this research area, work values and job motives havegradually drawn more interest since the early 1980s (Judge & Bretz, 1992).It is generally accepted that each individual has a unique set of personal valuesrelevant to multiple life areas, some of which are related to the work context. It hasbeen demonstrated that work values play a significant role both in an individual’svocational choice and in particular key attitudes and psychological states includingjob satisfaction, commitment and work motivation (e.g. Judge & Bretz, 1992; Roe& Ester, 1999). Some influential researchers developed have a well-supporteddefinition of the construct: values are considered to be cognitive representations ofneeds which are more general than interests (Rokeach, 1973; Schwartz, 1992;Super, 1973). Values are considered as trans-situational criteria or goals ordered by124Int J Educ Vocat Guid (2007) 7:123–136123

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importance that serve as guiding principles in people’s lives (Schwartz, 1999).Because of their broad and rudimentary character, they are considered enduringstandards that determine behaviour (Rokeach, 1973). In accordance with otherauthors such as Nord, Brief, Atieh and Doherty (1988) or the Meaning of WorkingInternational Research Team [MOW] (1987), work values are defined in thiscontribution as the general and relatively stable goals people desire and feel theyought to realise through working. This implies that work values reflect fundamentaland wide-ranging preferences, which are not so much concerned with aspects of aparticular vocation or organization, but with the nature of the work in general (Ros,Schwartz, & Surkiss, 1999). Although there seem to be as many work values asidentifiable work features (Zytowski, 1970), considerable disagreement remainsabout their dimensional structure. The approaches most frequently referred tocomprise between 10 and 20 value dimensions (e.g. Pryor, 1979; Schwartz, 1992;Super, 1970). Furthermore, several authors endeavour to create a higher-orderclassification of work values (e.g. Roe & Ester, 1999; Ros, Schwartz & Surkiss,1999). In this regard, a commonly used differentiation distinguishes betweenintrinsic or self-actualization, extrinsic or material, and social or interpersonal workvalues (MOW, 1987; Nord et al. 1988).Job motives, contrary to work values, received less research attention.According to Buchanan and Huczynski (1997), motives are ‘‘learned needs,which influence our behaviour by leading us to pursue particular goals becausethey are socially valued’’ (p. 71). Evans (1998) defines the construct as ‘‘theimpetus that creates inclination towards an activity’’ (p. 34). A motive is anoutcome that has become desirable for a given individual, and differentindividuals may be motivated by different outcomes (Buchanan & Huczynski,1997). Thus, job motives are, unlike the more general work values, described asoriented towards a particular activity (i.e. a specific job or occupation). They makean individual strive for a specific goal or incentive (McKenna, 1998) and takeshape in actual behaviour (Moorhead & Griffin, 1995). As such, job motives aremore closely related to a particular profession or job than work values which referto work in general. The qualifiers ‘‘intrinsic’’ and ‘‘extrinsic’’ are usedextensively to describe and classify job motives related to internally andexternally initiated behaviour (Miskel, 1982). Following the seminal work byHerzberg, Mausner and Snyderman (1959), and notwithstanding some methodo-logical criticisms (e.g. Kanungo & Hartwick, 1987), the so-called two-factormodel distinguishes between intrinsic job motives associated with characteristicsof the job itself (e.g. achievement, recognition, challenging work, responsibilityand growth) and extrinsic job motives, which cover pay, working conditions,supervision, interpersonal relations, status and security.In view of these general findings and taking into the account the researchpopulation of the present project, it can be argued (see Barnabe ´ & Burns, 1994) thata teaching environment must be considered as a very specific context, which differsquite considerably from a business (for-profit) environment. The followingdefinition (Barnabe ´ & Burns, 1994) is used within the framework of thiscontribution:Int J Educ Vocat Guid (2007) 7:123–136125123

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Teachers work in a flat, craft-style organizational structure, their work isprimarily with students, they are physically isolated from the continuousinteractions with other adults that characterize most business work and arefaced with qualitative based, subjective judgements of effectiveness. (p. 172)Although the related literature is not overwhelming, some studies have highlightedmotivational constructs within a teachers’ population. A substantial part of thisresearch concentrates on the views expressed by teachers in training (e.g Bastick,2000; Hayes, 1990; Moran, Kilpatrick, Abbott, Dallat, & McClune, 2001), but noneof the studies compare graduates who choose for a teaching job with those whochoose non-educational jobs. Hayes (1990) suggests that graduate teachers whochoose jobs other than teaching may be responding to their perception that teachingprovides low wages and does not offer sufficient opportunities for leadership-relatedfeatures like advancement, power, influence and autonomy. She concludes thatindividuals who want to grow in status and power would not decide to engage in ateaching job. Moreover, in a Belgian study of work values, teachers (and non-profitworkers in general) score exceptionally high on holistic values, meaning that theyprefer to see beyond themselves and consider what happens in their surrounding.This is unlike individuals who work in a business or for-profit sector and who exhibitmore individualistic values relating to a me-focused and opportunistic attitude andtry to maximize their benefits (Van den Broeck & Vanderheyden, 2000).As far as job motives are concerned, the three-factor model indicates that thereasons given for joining the teaching profession fall under three headings: extrinsic(E), intrinsic (I) and altruistic (A) (Andrews & Hatch, 2002; Bastick, 2000;Kyriacou & Coulthard, 2000). The extrinsic theme refers to job elements notinherent to the work itself, such as the actual teaching and interest in the use ofknowledge within the own discipline. Furthermore, the most popular motivesincluded in the intrinsic theme refer to the passion and vocation of the activity ingeneral (e.g. always wanted to teach) and the interest in working with children andtransferring information and culture (Fave & Massimini, 2003; Johnson, 1986;Scott, Cox, & Dinham, 1999). For quite some time there has been evidence thatintrinsic motives are more important to teachers than extrinsic motives (Johnson,1986; Lortie, 1975; Marshall, 1986). More recently, the existence of certaincommon intrinsic motives transcending cultures has been demonstrated (Fave &Massimini, 2003; Richardson & Watt, 2005). Finally, the altruistic theme in the EIAmodel covers job elements which present teaching as a socially valuable activity,related to the desire to promote the individual’s as well as society’s development,without immediate personal benefit (e.g., helping others and serving society). Anumber of studies into teacher motivation have concluded that altruism is the majorreason for choosing teaching as a career (e.g. Brown, 1992; Hayes, 1990; Moran,Kilpatrick, Abbott, Dallat, & McClune, 2001).In view of the emphasis in this study on the motives for everyday teaching, thefindings of Mitchell and Peters (1988) are relevant. They report that althoughextrinsic benefits play an important role in stimulating good teachers to enter andstay in the profession, everyday teaching efforts are more effectively encouraged byaltruistic and interpersonal features, in particular by a sense of pride in student126 Int J Educ Vocat Guid (2007) 7:123–136123

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achievement and by the pleasure derived from working with students whoappreciate the opportunity to learn. A qualitative study of Belgian teachers(Schepers et al., 2005) also supports the EIA three-factor model and suggestsextending the model by introducing the interpersonal factor, which refers to thesocial interactions commonly present in a teaching job.The major objective of this study is to explore the motivation of recentlygraduated teachers to pursue a teaching job, based on job motives and work values.In addition the relation between the two concepts is investigated. An ensuing aimrelates to study differences between graduate teachers practising the teachingprofession, and graduates in non-teaching professions. Based on the previouslydiscussed literature, the following research hypotheses are proposed:– Teachers are predominantly motivated by intrinsic compared to extrinsicmotives;Teachers attach great importance to altruistic and interpersonal motives;Interpersonal and altruistic work values are more important as motivators forgraduates in a teaching job than for graduates in a non-teaching job;Extrinsic work values are more motivating for graduates in non-teachingpositions than for graduates in teaching positions.–––MethodParticipantsA random sample of 714 young graduates was drawn from the 2,500 graduates ofthe 2004 class from nine different teacher training institutes in Flanders (the Dutchspeaking part of Belgium). A total of 241 graduates completed the questionnaire,leading to a response rate of 33.7%, which is acceptable for a postal survey with nofollow-up. Approximately three-quarters (n = 179) of the respondents held ateaching job at the moment they completed the questionnaire (this group is calledthe ‘‘teachers’’), 18.0% (n = 43) held another job (this group is called the ‘‘non-teachers’’) and 7.1% (n = 17) was still unemployed. About half of the non-teachershad a job in the for-profit sector, whereas the other half specified working in thenon-educational non-profit sector. Because of the small sample size of unemployedrespondents, this paper will only focus on the group of teachers and non-teachers.The majority of the sample, 72.1% (n = 160) was female and the mean age of therespondents was 23.3 years with a standard deviation of 2.5.ProcedureThe data collection took place in November 2004. A questionnaire was sent by mailto the graduates together with a university-addressed prepaid reply envelope. Therewas no follow-up procedure of non-respondents because the questionnaires werecompleted anonymously. All respondents (N = 222) completed the work valuesInt J Educ Vocat Guid (2007) 7:123–136 127123

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questionnaire, whereas only the teachers (n = 179) additionally completed the jobmotives questionnaire.MeasuresThe questionnaire included three parts: some general questions on employmentbackground, educational background, gender and age; a job motives and a workvalues questionnaire.Job motivesTeachers’ job motives are measured through a job motive questionnaire based onprevious work by Schepers et al. (2005). Respondents indicate to what extent theyagree that 35 motives convinced them to start working as a teacher on a scale rangingfrom 1 (totally disagree) to 5 (totally agree). Examples of items are: ‘‘I choose ateaching job because of the pleasant working environment’’ and ‘‘I choose a teachingjob because of the support I get from the management’’. In this questionnaire, in linewith what was specified earlier for job motives, the emphasis is clearly on the specificgoals that individuals pursue in their actual job. In order to test the reliability of thisnewly developed part of the questionnaire, an additional group of 34 teacherscompleted it on two separate occasions with a two week time interval in between. Onbasis of the test-retest correlations, three items with a non significant correlation(p > .05) were removed from the analysis, resulting in a total of 32 items.The factor structure of the questionnaire was analysed by a principal componentanalysis with oblique rotation (direct oblimin, delta = 0), which allows componentsto correlate (Hair, Anderson, Tatham, & Black, 1998). In case of low inter-component correlations (r < .4) a principal component analysis with varimax rotationis then applied. In order to achieve a robust structure, different component solutionsare assessed, based on the eigenvalues being larger than 1 and the scree plots. Itemloadings above .40 are used to interpret the components, while items which areconceptually misplaced or have non-unique loadings are deleted. After applyingthese guidelines, six items were deleted because of inadequate factor loadings.The best solution for a factor structure model, based on the remaining items,defines seven components explaining 65.69% of the variance (Table 1). Thefollowing components are found: professional contact (four items, a = .83), socialrole (four items, a = .76), transfer of knowledge (four items, a = .76), workingconditions (five items, a = .72), student contact (four items, a = .77), variety andchallenge (three items, a = .74) and work itself (two items, a = .79).Work valuesThe Dutch version of the Value Scale (Belang van waarden) developed by Coetsierand Claes (1990) was used as a starting point for the value questionnaire in thisproject. The original questionnaire was initially developed within the framework ofthe Work Importance Study (Super & Sverko, 1995) and has much in common withother instruments (i.e. the Work Values Scale by Super & Nevill, 1985). This128Int J Educ Vocat Guid (2007) 7:123–136123

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large-scale, cross-cultural project conducted by researchers from 14 differentcountries concentrated on the study of values (the rewards that people seek fromlife) and the role salience. The original Flemish version contains 105 items, loadingon 21 scales. In this study a reduced version with 37 items is used. This version wasdeveloped and validated by Buyens (1993) and others (De Cooman, De Gieter,Pepermans, Du Bois, Caers, & Jegers (in press); De Vos, 2002). For each item (e.g.‘‘I find it important to have a job in which I can use my capabilities’’, ‘‘I find itimportant to be involved in work aimed at helping other people’’), the respondentTable 1 Varimax-rotated principal component analysis for job motivesJob motivesc1c2 c3c4c5 c6 c7Support from colleagues.84Support from manangement .83Contacts with colleagues .72Pleasant working environment .67Social role of education .77Participate in the future of young people .67Provide good education .63Make oneself useful .49Transfer knowledge .79Impart something to the students.76Contacts with students .60Achieve something with some students .60Holiday regulations .84More free time .77Good wage .69Easy combing work and family .58Job security .43?.41Appreciation from the students.82Feedback from the students .79Responsibility as a teacher.45.50Substantive interest in the job.48Challenges .82Variety .78Possibilites for personal development .58Love teaching .81Always wanted a job in education sector.76% explained variance11.4110.3610.19.129.127.797.87M3.314.144.363.194.044.174.15SD0.780.59 0.550.800.640.650.89Note: Absolute values less than .40 were omitted. (c1) professional contact; (c2) social role; (c3) transferof knowledge; (c4) working conditions; (c5) student contact; (c6) variety and challenge; (c7) work itselfInt J Educ Vocat Guid (2007) 7:123–136129123

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rated its importance on a five-point scale ranging from 1 (totally unimportant) to 5(totally important).According to the analysis by De Vos (2002), four higher-order dimensions(advancement, autonomy, economic rewards and group orientation) ought to befound. Results from a confirmatory factor analysis, on the data of the present study,which tested these four components, indicate a bad fit (v2(623, n = 222) = 1666.68,p < .01, GF1 = 0.660, AGFI = 0.616, RMSEA = 0.104). Therefore, an exploratoryprincipal component analysis is conducted for this questionnaire.After an initial principal component analysis of the 37 items for the work values,16 items had to be removed because of low loading, cross-loadings and conceptualmismatch. The remaining 21 items result in a six component solution explaining63.91% of the variance (Table 2). The components include: financial security (fouritems, a = .77), social service (three items, a = .82), interpersonal contact (fouritems, a = .73), autonomy (three items, a = .71), recognition (four items, a = .65)Table 2 Varimax-rotated principal component analysis for work valuesWork valuesc1 c2c3c4c5c6To know you will always make a living .74To have a job that provides steady employment.72To have regular earnings .72To have your income secured .70To be involved in work aimed at helping other people .85To help people with problems.80To have a job that serves other people .80To have a job in which you can easily make friends .84To have people who make time for a chat.76To be toghether with the same sort of people .57To work in group rather than alone.42 .57To do things your own way.82To live according to your own ideas .82To take your own decisions at work .69To be strongly appreciated for your work.68To have influence on others.64To reach your personal goals.63To be recognized for your achievements.56To make progress in your career.82To get promotion.82To be a leader at work.64% explained variance11.8623.1734.3144.4053.8963.38M4.244.323.893.833.69 2.85SD0.540.580.630.620.56 0.77Note: Absolute values less than .40 were omitted. (c1) financial security; (c2) social service; (c3)interpersonal contact; (c4) autonomy; (c5) recognition; (c6) career and leadership130Int J Educ Vocat Guid (2007) 7:123–136123

ResultsCorrelation analyses between job motives and work values measures (Table 3)reveal some significant relations between subscales that are content related. Theseindicate that both instruments are somewhat related (strongest relationship, r = .55),but measure motivational preferences at different levels.Regarding the relative importance attached to the final seven job motivecomponents, mean scores (Table 1) indicate transfer of knowledge, referring to theteaching itself, to play a key role for starting teachers. The components variety andchallenge and work itself (including the vocation to become a teacher) emphasizeeven further the intrinsic job motives. Furthermore, the teacher’s social role (thesocial function of education and the teacher’s role within this process), which refersto an altruistic motive, is also important in this sample. Subsequently, interpersonalfeatures of the job are found in two motives, i.e. student contact (the relationshipwith the students and the responsibility linked to it) and professional contact (theworking environment and the support from and contact with colleagues andmanagement). Finally, the component working conditions, which refers to extrinsicfeatures, is considered to be the least crucial motive.The differences in the means for the importance attached to the six work valuesfor teachers and non-teachers are tested using independent samples t-tests (seeTable 4). The importance attached to the values is different in both sub samples.Teachers attach most importance to social service, while financial security comessecond. For non-teachers, it is the other way round. For the work value socialservice, a statistically significant difference is found between teachers and non-teachers (t(219) = 3.68, p < .01). Teachers are more motivated by providing a socialservice when at work (i.e. the possibility to help people through their work)compared to non-teachers. In order of importance, within the sample of teachers, thecomponent interpersonal contact is found in third position, while within the sampleTable 4 Differences in work values between teachers and non-teachers: means, standards deviations,t-tests and significanceComponentGroupMSDt dfpFinancial securityTeachers4.25 0.530.314 215.75Non-teachers4.21 0.57Social service Teachers 4.390.543.68219<.01Non-teachers4.040.67Interpersonal contactTeachers3.950.612.67216<.01Non-teachers3.670.66AutonomyTeachers3.860.601.48218 .15Non-teachers 3.710.70RecognitionTeachers3.690.560.11216 .91Non-teachers3.680.58Career and leadershipTeachers2.790.76?2.48217.01Non-teachers3.110.74132Int J Educ Vocat Guid (2007) 7:123–136123

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of non-teachers this component only appears in fifth position. Compared to non-teachers, teachers seem to be significantly more motivated by the relationship andfriendship inherent to the job (t(216) = 2.67, p < .01). The importance of autonomyand recognition does not differ between the two groups. Finally, career andleadership ranks last in both samples. Nevertheless, non-teachers estimate this valuesignificantly higher than teachers (t(217) = 2.48, p < .05).DiscussionThe hypotheses that young teacher graduates are predominately motivated byintrinsic compared to extrinsic job motives, and comparatively speaking consideraltruistic and interpersonal motives higher are supported by the results of this study.These results clearly support the EIA three-factor model (Andrews & Hatch, 2002;Bastick, 2000; Kyraciacou & Coulthard, 2000) and its further extension with afourth interpersonal factor (Schepers et al., 2005). Regarding job motives, the youngteachers in this survey assess intrinsic features as most motivating, which is in linewith previous findings by Fave and Massimini (2003) and Richardson and Watt(2005). The relatively low importance they attach to the working conditions as a jobmotive (an extrinsic job feature) supports the conclusions of Johnson (1986), Lortie(1975) and Marshall (1986) that intrinsic job features have a much strongermotivational potential for day-to-day teaching than extrinsic job features. Anotherconclusion can be drawn relating to the high importance of the altruistic factor,which is repeatedly stressed in earlier research (Brown, 1992; Hayes, 1990; Moranet al., 2001), and which gets further support in this study. Concerning the additionalinterpersonal factor, it can be concluded that good relationships and contacts withstudents are important for the work motivation of teachers. The findings include aplea for extending the job motives framework beyond the classic two-factor modeltowards a much broader four-factor model. This is at least valid for the teachingprofession.The hypothesis concerning how work values differ between teacher graduatesholding a teacher or non-teacher job is also supported. The results demonstrate thatthree work values differentiate significantly between the two groups. The strongestdifferences are found for the values social service and interpersonal contact. Asexpected (Van den Broeck & Vanderheyden, 2000), teachers included in this surveyprefer altruistic and interpersonal values, while non-teachers are more attracted byindividualistic values such as career opportunities and executive powers. Thequestion that arises now, and that requires further investigation, relates to whetherteachers become more altruistic and interpersonally oriented when in the profession,or whether they display these features before entering the profession. The formercould be seen as the result of effective socialisation, while the latter could beconsidered the result of an attrition phenomenon (Wright, 2001). Alternatively ofcourse, a similar argument could be produced for the non-teachers in this studybeing more individualistic. The present study results only indicate that teachers whodo not practise the profession have a different work value profile compared to theirfellow graduates who work as teachers. The data, however, do not offer theInt J Educ Vocat Guid (2007) 7:123–136133123

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possibility to discover the reasons for not entering the teaching profession.Conceivable reasons are being interested in and attracted by other professions anddropping out during selection procedures, therefore putting this issue on the researchagenda for the future.Within the framework of the general goals of this study some attention shouldalso be given to the relationship between the measures of job motives and workvalues. The results indicate the existence of a positive, albeit rather weakcorrelation between allied subscales of the two instruments. This suggests thateach component focuses on a different level of work motivation, one morespecific and the other more general. The results do, however, not allow for thisrelationship to be clarified. Therefore, future studies could focus on theserelationships and attempt to explain whether certain work values may predisposean individual for certain job motives.The group of non-teachers includes respondents working in both the for-profitand non-profit sector. This biases the results towards smaller differences betweenthe groups of teachers versus non-teachers. Moreover, because of the small samplesize of the non-teachers, it is not possible to analyse differences between those whowork in the for-profit (n = 17) and those who work in the non-profit sector (n = 19).Given this limitation, it is not possible to draw conclusions about the generaldifferences between individuals working in the for-profit and non-profit sector. Itcan be expected that a differentiation among non-teachers may even show a largegap between teachers and profit employees, with the group of non-teachers (but as-such-educated teachers) as an in-between group with respect to job motives andwork values. Therefore, the present results may be seen as an indication and anonset to further research.Yet, there is some evidence that the present results may be valid beyond theteaching profession. Within the broader framework of non-profit organizations,Basini and Buckly (1999) conclude that in general, non-profit sector employees aremuch more interested in intrinsic and altruistic components (such as seeing theirwork as a useful way of serving society), unlike profit workers who display a moreinstrumental motivation. This does not clarify whether this motivation developedduring employment in the non-profit job or whether it was already present uponentering the job.The Basini and Buckly (1999) results also indicate that the motivational profile asfound in the present study is probably not limited to teachers only, which makes itinteresting to test the hypotheses for other non-profit professions as well.Furthermore, exploring within group differences among non-teachers and to whatextent and why individuals intentionally choose for their career moves, remainsinteresting and clarifying.This study support the forwarded hypotheses, but at the same time it mirrorssome limitations. The results support the notion that young teacher graduates have aparticular motivation for working in the educational sector and that as a group theyare different from other employees. The study also offers an invitation for furtherresearch to compare with results achieved for other parts of the non-profit orfor-profit sector.134Int J Educ Vocat Guid (2007) 7:123–136123